As They Were
by WildwingSuz
Summary: The missing part in all things between when Scully runs into Mulder outside the hospital and when you see them sitting on the couch in his apartment.


Spoilers: The missing part in _all things_ between when Scully runs into Mulder outside the hospital and when you see them sitting on the couch in his apartment.

Author's Notes: Written for the Feb. 2015 Facebook XF Writer's Guild Flashfic Challenge in about four hours and made me late picking up my husband from the airport. When the muse strikes, it hits me over the head with a freaking mallet.

The challenge: Write a secret, preferably one you think no one could relate to. Any character reveals a secret to any other character, either via plot/they get drunk/they have a hospital confession, that they think the other character won't be able to relate to.

Thanks to Marissa and Edward for quick reads.

* * *

**As They Were  
**Rated PG  
Suzanne Feld

"I _am_ a little surprised that you had an affair with a married man, that just doesn't seem like something you'd do, but sometimes we don't think of the consequences of our actions when we're young," I said after Scully had told me most of the story about her and Waterston. God, I hated that man for fucking with her head like that; no wonder she'd barely dated since I'd known her. "I've always been so... envious... of the stories you've told about your family, how normal you seemed to grow up, that I am a little surprised to hear it. I had a bad example, my parents were always fighting or apart after Samantha disappeared, but yours seemed to have a great marriage from what you've told me. I know you wouldn't do anything like that now."

Though we had first planned to go to her place, mine was closer to the hospital where we ran into each other. Though I was in the mood for something much stronger, I had let her make us tea and now we sat together on the couch in my living room, silent but for the sounds of our voices and the bubbling of my fish tank.

Scully leaned forward and picked up her mug from the coffee table, her thick auburn hair swinging over the side of her face and obscuring it from me for a moment. "God, no. I'll never fall for that bullshit again. Young and stupid, right. He told me that he and his wife were living together but separated, that they were going to divorce as soon as Maggie was a little older and could handle it better. Like any other smitten idiot, I believed him." Her voice was bitter. Understandably. "As the months went by I began to realize that it was a line of crap, but it wasn't until his wife confronted me at the hospital that I found out just how much he was lying to me. He had told me that she'd known that we were seeing each other the whole time, that she didn't care, but let me assure you, she did. To my eternal humiliation."

I nodded as she sat back, cupping the mug in both hands. "I don't suppose you can understand why I did that, Mulder, and I'm sure that you now think less of me—"

I set my mug down on the table and turned to her, my knee brushing her skirt. "Why would you think that?"

She shrugged, looking down at her cup and avoiding my eyes. "Because I'm a homewrecker, the other woman, who broke up their marriage and hurt their daughter beyond what—"

Again I interrupted her. "I did the same thing, Scully, when I was at Oxford," I confessed. I had never told anyone about this but I felt it was important at this point that she knew. And my story was just as bad as hers, if not worse.

She turned to look at me, eyebrows raised, surprise written across her lovely features as she set her mug on the coffee table. "You had an affair? With a married woman?"

I nodded, resting my elbows on my knees and letting my hands dangle between them. "It was right after Phoebe dumped me. I moved in with another American I barely knew on the other side of the campus from her, and I stayed away from all our friends so I was really lonely on top of being depressed. After a few days I began running into the same woman in the hallway when I was coming or going; I didn't realize until much later that it was deliberate on her part." I paused for a drink of my still-warm tea, holding the mug between my hands like she had, only leaning over my knees. "I was flattered that she seemed to find me attractive, I needed the boost to my ego after what Phoebe had done to me, and when she told me her husband worked nights—well. To make a long story short, we ended up in her bed one evening and for quite a few after that... until her husband came home early and caught us. He chased me out of there with a cricket bat and then beat her up and threw her out with nothing but the clothes on her back. I was at the nearest pub drinking myself stupid while he was pounding on her. I ended up in the drunk tank and didn't find out until the next day after she was long gone. I had my roommate bring my stuff out and never set foot in that building, or saw her, again." I felt the old dark shame rise, knowing that she had taken all the punishment for a crime we'd committed together and that I had been such a craven coward.

Scully put her free hand on my knee, the corner of her mouth quirking. "You're right about the things _we_ do when we're young and stupid," she said in a low voice, her eyes understanding as they met mine. Our gazes held for a moment and I felt a jolt low in my belly, like nothing I'd ever felt before, and realized that it was love for this incredible woman who had decided to share my life without any of the benefits of a "normal" relationship and all of the disadvantages—and then some. Though I knew I'd loved her for a long time, it just now dawned on me how much I was _in_ love with her.

I was more than a little shaken by this realization, and needed a moment to regroup. "Be right back, gotta use the bathroom," I lied, patting her hand as she moved it, then getting up off the couch and walking around the coffee table.

"Mulder?"

I stopped near my bedroom door and looked down at her. She was perched on the edge of my black leather couch, sitting with her knees primly together and hands on either side as if about to rise, looking up at me with an inscrutable expression. I could only hope she wasn't going to leave. "Yeah, Scully?"

"I... had a vision in that Buddhist temple. About Daniel, my father... and you. Mostly about you."

I felt my heart leap. Was she saying what I hoped she was saying? Had she felt the same jolt, spark, whatever, when our eyes met and held a few moments ago?

"I think... I think I see things clearer now. Things as they really are, as they were, rather than what I want or wanted them to be. I'm ready to move my life in a different direction, one that may not be what I thought I wanted... but what I need. Does that make any sense?"

"It does. For me too." It was my way of letting her know that if she was ready to take our relationship forward, then I was too. Suddenly I was so sick and tired of dancing around this whole thing between us that I wanted to just scoop her up and kiss the living daylights out of her, but I restrained myself. One huge life change in forty-eight hours was enough; a little more time wouldn't kill either of us. Better for me to wait and make sure. She shifted as if to rise and I said quickly, "You're not leaving, are you?"

"What? No... no." She relaxed back on the couch and put her stockinged feet up on my coffee table, crossing them and giving me a small, wiseass, close-mouthed smile. I knew it was because I often did the same thing at her house to her eternal annoyance. "I'm... I'm in no rush to go anywhere, for once."

"Glad to hear it. I'll be right back and we can continue discussing how things could be, if you want," I said meaningfully, gazing down at her.

She continued to smile up at me, dimples appearing in her cheeks. "I'd like that."

And so would I.

finis


End file.
